A Kid Grows Up on a Farm - Part Four: Help From Machines

On our little dairy farm, the transition to mechanization begins with the installation of milking machines when I am fifteen years old. It is a relief to be freed from the hours of sitting on a tiny stool and squeezing teats, head against the cow’s flank. Now I just switch on the vacuum pump, connect the milking machine hose to the vacuum line and slip the four teat-cups on and leave it to do its work. Dick then attaches the second machine to the next cow. When the first cow finishes I pour the milk from the milking machine pail into a stainless-steel bucket and carry to the milkhouse to weigh and strain into a milk can the way we always have. During the milking, when we think a cow might be almost done, we watch the little window on the milk hose to see how much milk is coming through. When very little we remove the teat-cups. If the front pair of teats have been drained but the rear not, I remove the front two and leave the back ones on to complete the milking.  The feel of the udder indicates whether there is any milk remaining.  If there is, I pull up a stool and spend a couple of minutes stripping the rest of the milk by hand.

Page 1 of our new milking machine manual

 

A couple of years later more machines are added, beginning with a Farmall A tractor. It comes with a Farmhand front-end loader that can be fitted with a hay sweep or a manure fork. We also get a Massey-Harris side-delivery rake and a McCormick seven-foot mower to attach to the tractor. Now haying is a breeze. We mow faster, without any breaks, and are spared the painful task of driving our old team of Percherons to their limit. Instead of gathering and dumping like the old rake, the new one progressively sweeps the hay to one side until it forms a two-foot-high windrow. Hay no longer coiled but left to finish curing in the windrow. When dry it is gathered by the sweep on the tractor, and either dumped on the hay rack to haul to the barn or dropped to form a stack in the field to be hauled in next winter as needed. For winter hauling we shift the hayrack onto a set of sleigh bunks because wheels are too hard to pull through the snow.

There are other changes. At last year’s Fall Show and Sale Dad sold off all the sheep. Molly and Dolly are gone, I think to the fox farm two miles west of us. Dad no longer plants an oat crop to thresh, instead buying prepared feed from the local feed mill at Salisbury Corner.

Thankfully, not all activities are farm work.  When I am seventeen, Dick and I decide to become independently mobile. Although there are plenty of chances to drive Dad’s car, we want a car of our own. After saving $100 we buy a 1928 Chrysler four door sedan. A cloud of exhaust smoke follows us during our test drive, but we buy it anyway. It is a bit of a relic with wooden wheel spokes, a hardwood frame and vacuum driven windshield wipers. The wipers work fine until when passing a car in the rain the acceleration reduces the vacuum enough to stop the wipers.

The smoking exhaust is embarrassing, and it also means the car is burning a lot of oil. “Let’s give her a ring job”, I say, not knowing how, but confident we can figure it out. Fortunately, Cousin Bob, is an apprentice automotive mechanic and is our guide. It is a tedious process; we remove the head from the top of the straight six cylinder engine, remove the oil pan from the bottom, undo the connecting rods from the crankshaft, and pull out the pistons. Piston rings are replaced with new ones from Taylor and Pearson Auto Supplies in Edmonton. Before reassembly, we also remove the connecting rods shims to ensure a tight fit onto the crankshaft. On starting it up, presto!, no smoky exhaust.

The old Chrysler with its top speed of 50 mph is a good car, but not very cool. So, a year later we sell it and buy a 1932 yellow Plymouth roadster convertible complete with a rumble seat that pulls opens at the back. The top leaks, and it sometimes gets stuck in second gear but it’s a lot more fun than the old Chrysler.

I do love driving, whether it’s a car or a tractor, and I’m pretty sure I can drive anything. For example, the contractor who opened a sand pit in our North Field leaves his International TD14 caterpillar diesel tractor there unattended on weekends. It is too tempting. I walk over and climb up into the seat to figure out how this thing works. I notice a big lever on the instrument panel with the word “START” in the up position and “RUN” in the down position. With the lever in the UP position, I push the starter button a few seconds later the engine starts! After a couple of minutes, I move the lever to “RUN” causing a puff of smoke and a change in the engine sound.[1]

International TD-14 Tractor

But before the tractor can be moved, I find the lever to raise the bulldozer blade. That accomplished, I see there are left and right foot pedals and hand levers. I decide that these must be the clutch and brake controls for each track. Sure enough, when I put it in gear and push the left lever forward the machine starts to move in a line curving to the right. When the brake pedal on the right side is depressed, the beast turns more sharply to the right. I am exhilarated! I can drive a cat!

A few days later neighbour Billy Mentuk gets his half-ton truck stuck in the ditch across the road where he is (illegally) loading sand from the road allowance. He sees me in the yard and asks if our little Farmall A tractor can pull him out. I answer, “I’m not sure – but I know the TD14 will. I feel a joyful thrill while performing this feat, especially afterwards when Billy says, “I didn’t know you could drive a cat.” In one of my proudest moments, I try to disguise my self-confident ego with false modesty, by replying, “Nothing to it really”.

There was plenty of fun in life in the country: In winter it was skating and playing hockey on the Clover Bar Village rink or on local lakes and ponds.

Going skating on a neighbour's pond

In summer it is playing second base for the Salisbury men’s fastball team; going on bike rides; attending the United Church boy’s camp in August of each year; and enjoying the fellowship of the church-based young peoples group.

Shortly after my eighteenth birthday I enrol in the first year of the BSc program in Agriculture at the University of Alberta. Farm work, except for some evenings and weekends, is now replaced by academic pursuits. I find it intriguing to learn what lies beyond the knowledge gained from practical farm experience. 

I believe that meeting the challenges of farm work gave me the confidence that would prove valuable in facing difficult tasks to be encountered later in life. I am grateful for, and feel very privileged to have had these formative years on the farm.

Farm improvements continued after my teen years. Dad had a new loose housing barn built to accommodate the expanding herd of purebred Holsteins. It contained a lounging area that was kept clean by the continual addition of straw during the winter. Next to it was a separate forage feeding alley that was cleaned regularly with the tractor and loader. Doors from the lounging area opened to the adjacent milking parlour with its three elevated stanchions. Here the milking machines were applied, and concentrate fed during the milking. In place of the old milk cans, the milk was stored in a refrigerated bulk tank to be collected by a tank truck every two days.

The farmstead in 1954

To feed the expanded herd, Dad rented eighty acres of adjacent cropland from a neighbour. Harvesting the oat silage produced on this land required the purchase of a second tractor and a forage harvester with wagon. The moist forage was ensiled in a long narrow pit and preserved by fermentation. During the winter it was removed by the tractor loader and dropped into the feed bunks.

By the mid 1950’s brother Dick had taken over most farming activities from Dad, who now focussed on his love of gardening. Younger brother Owen, now entering his teens, became a very capable and enthusiastic farm work partner with his dad and older brother.

[1] Later I notice that the engine has a carburetor and spark plugs on one side and diesel fuel injectors on the other. “So that’s how it works”, I thought. The START lever position puts the engine on gasoline using the spark plugs and moving it to RUN switches to the diesel fuel injectors on the other side.

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A Kid Grows Up on a Farm - Part Three: Field Work

Previous: Part One: The Barn and Part Two: The Other Farmyard Buildings

It’s the middle of May. The pastures are turning green, and the perfume of budding black poplars fills the air. It’s time to seed the oats that Dick and I have cleaned with the fanning mill. To protect the seeds from fungus rot and insects while in the ground before they germinate, we wet them with a formaldehyde solution . Next we shovel them into the hopper on top of the seed drill, hitch up Molly and Dolly again, and head for The South Field. Dad checks the drill’s seeding rate lever to be sure it’s set at 2.5 bushels per acre (about 100 lbs) and the depth set at two inches. Seeding is best done while there is a crosswind to avoid travelling along with a breeze that would keep Dad within a very dusty cloud. 

The Farm Fields

During the next few weeks before haymaking starts, Saturdays are filled with various jobs. We mend fences and clean out manure from calf pens, sheep sheds, and the chicken house. Our old two-horse team is involved in all this work: taking us along the fence-lines with replacement posts on the hayrack; and drawing the stone-boat with loads of organic nutrients to the pasture.

There are also weed and pest control tasks. Canada thistle is an invasive pasture weed. So, after honing the scythe with the whetstone, I swing it over my shoulder and head for thistle patches. We like to mow them down before they form flowers and go to seed.

Gophers also need to be kept in check. A group of them can consume a surprising amount of grass. We use three control methods: shoot them with the .22 rifle when they pop their heads up; place strychnine-laced oats down their entrance holes; and catch them in leg-hold traps, dispatching them with a club. Dad poisons them, and I prefer to shoot them.

In late June, about a month after seeding, the first crop of alfalfa hay is ready to harvest on The Nine Acres. The ride-on hay mower cuts a five-foot swath with a reciprocating saw-toothed blade which is driven by the rotation of the wheels. If the horses go too slow, the blade does not move fast enough to make a clean cut, so our old Percheron pair must be continuously urged to keep moving at a brisk pace. This is hard for the old girls who are nearing retirement at more than twenty years old. Also, Dolly is slightly lame in a hind leg and lags a bit, increasing the load on her partner. I feel a mix of guilt and sorrow as they valiantly struggle to keep up the pace in response to my demands.

Dolly and Molly with Dick, Owen, cousins Bob McKeever and Jim Thurlow, and myself  (seated) in 1944.  

After a couple of days in the sun the hay has wilted enough to rake. Once again, I harness the horses and hitch them to the 10-foot-wide dump rake with its long, curved teeth. I find this a much more relaxing job than mowing because speed doesn’t matter. When the rake teeth are full of hay, I press a foot lever that activates a cog in one wheel to raise the teeth to leave the newly raked hay as an extension of the row of that was previously raked.

One day, our neighbor George Daly is helping  us with raking. He has a pair of newly broken horses that he wants to give some work. I am in the same field coiling[1] hay that had been raked when I see Mr. Daly’s team speed up to a to canter. I think they were spooked by the noise and jerk of the rake when the teeth are lifted. Whatever the reason, they were now tearing across the field, out of control.

I yell to Dick “I think it’s a runaway”. I had heard tales of runaways but never thought I would see one.  Breathless, I watch the spectacle unfold as the team breaks into a full gallop. George, seated high on the rake, is leaning backwards as he pulls on the reins in a vain attempt to restrain his mustangs. He has nothing to hold onto but the reins. We watch him bounce off the seat and then reappear in the cloud of dust behind the rake. He is not ready to concede defeat. He holds onto the reins for a few long seconds, skipping along on his ample belly in the dusty aftermath of the speeding rake before letting go. We run to see if he is okay and find him black-faced and shaken but not hurt. The errant steeds had come to an abrupt halt at the fence at the east end of the field. George untangles them from the wire and leads them quietly back to his place across the road.

A rake like the one Mr. Daly was on.

The hay is left in coils for a few days to finish curing. Hay coils can shed a light rain and still dry, but if a heavy rain soaks them through, we have the extra job of turning them over to dry out. When the hay is dry, we hitch the team to the hayrack and head for the field.  We pull alongside a row of coils and start loading. Dick and I jump off the hayrack and start pitching the coils onto the rack, starting at the  enclosed ends of the hayrack. It usually takes two forkfuls to pick up a coil, but I like to test myself by trying to do it in one.

Molly and Dolly proceed along the row of coils starting and stopping by our verbal commands. When the center unenclosed part of the rack has a couple of feet of hay, Dick climbs up to build the load, distributing, organizing, and packing the hay. By the time I am hoisting forkfuls 10 feet high I know we have a full load of over a ton of hay ready to haul and stack in the yard beside the barn.

We pull into the yard leaving enough room for the haystack between our hayrack and the barn. After we fork off half the load Dick jumps down and arranges the hay in a about a 7’x 15’ rectangle to form the base of the stack. I unload the rest while Dick packs and arranges it. He keeps the walls of the stack vertical while keeping it high in the middle to create a thatching effect on the sides to repel the rain. On the fifth and final load of the day Dick tapers the stack to create a rounded top and the stack is almost finished. The final touch is going around the stack stroking its sides with our pitchforks to leave vertical surface straws to better shed the rain.

The nine-acre field of Alfalfa yields ten loads of hay, and five more loads the next day complete a second stack. In a few days, the twenty-acre “Big Field” of Brome grass and Alsike clover mix will be ready to cut, and the haying process is repeated taking up most of July. The feeling of having three more haystacks in the hay yard and one by the sheep corral is very satisfying. Dick and I get a break in mid-August as we enjoy a week at the United Church boys summer camp in Elk Island Park. When we return, we start in mowing the second crop of Alfalfa for the final hay harvest of the year.

The hay harvest is finished but the grain harvest is yet to come. By late September the oat field has turned from olive green to ecru as the panicle heads of the plants ripen. It’s time to drag the old McCormick binder out of the shed and grease the bearings, check the canvasses, and load the binder twine. It is a complicated implement. Like the mower, it has a six-foot reciprocating serrated cutting blade but here the similarity ends.

Instead of the cut crop falling on the ground, it is pushed back into a conveyer canvas by a rotating reel above. This first canvas carries the cut oat stalks to a second which elevates them a few feet until they slide down the other side to the knotter. Here the stalks are bunched and tied into a bundle (sheaf) about eight inches in diameter, after which they are dropped onto a carrier near the ground level. When ten bundles have accumulated, a pedal is pushed to drop the carrier leaving the bundles on the ground and eventually making rows of bundles piles across the field.

A Binder like ours

The binder, because of its weight and many moving parts, is too much for old Molly and Dolly so Dad borrows neighbor Dick Hulbert’s three-horse team of bay Belgians. The three of them pull the binder around the field with ease. This is an example of the sharing of resources among our neighbors.  Equipment, labour, and horses might be shared and accounted for through work exchange, simple neighborly support, and sometimes even cash.

Dad operates the binder while Dick and I do the stooking. When the crop is first cut, the oats are of a chewy consistency and must be left for at least a week for them to become hard and dry for threshing. For this final ripening, we stand the ten-bundle piles on end to create stooks. I start by picking up a bundle in each hand and plunking their butt ends down on the stubbled ground about two feet apart, pushing their tops together to create an inverted “V”.  I add two more pairs of bundles on either side producing an A-frame stook. Dad says it’s best to align them east-west so the prevailing west winds can pass through them to assist the drying. We are wearing gloves because the bundles can contain prickly Hemp Nettle and Canada Thistle in these days before herbicides.

When the oats are ready, the neighboring Hulbert brothers arrive to do the threshing. I am excited when I hear their cleated steel-wheeled Minneapolis tractor coming up our driveway. Bob is on the tractor towing their 22-inch-feed Case threshing machine and his brother Dick follows with a team and rack. Bob pulls the machine in beside the granary, unhooks the tractor and levels the machine. He then positions the tractor facing the machine so that he can connect the tractor power-take-off pulley to the threshing machine pulley with a thirty-foot-long six-inch-wide belt.

In the meantime, as Dick Hulbert is helping set up the machine, brother Dick and I are heading for the oat field on our Percheron-drawn hayrack to load up. Dad has hired a man though the Edmonton employment office to help as a field pitcher who is already in field waiting t.o help us load. He is big strapping Black man who later tells us at dinner that his regular job is running the plucking machine at South Edmonton Poultry Plant. He and I pitch the bundles onto the wagon while Dick arranges them like sardines in a can with their butt ends facing out on the open sides of the hayrack. When we are loaded, we make the quarter-mile trip to the thresher with Dick and atop the load. Meanwhile, our hired field-pitcher waits among the stooks to help load Dick Hulbert`s rack.

As we pull up alongside the bundle intake feeder on the threshing machine, the noise from the tractor and the whirring machine makes it hard to hear each other. Dick goes into the granary to level the oats coming into the bin from the pipe through the wall while I unload the bundles. I am careful not to feed them into the machine too fast or it will plug up the works inside. They must also be tossed in grain-end-first to achieve the best thresh. I don’t know how it works inside because all I can see in this loud and dusty environment are knives clawing at the sheaves to cut the twine as they go in, and oat straw being blown out of a ten-inch pipe, fifteen feet in the air creating a straw pile.

Typical threshing scene, We had grain going into the granary instead of a wagon

By the five o’clock shutdown, after breaks for lunch and afternoon tea, about half the field is cleared. If the weather stays dry, we will finish the field tomorrow. 

But our threshing job is not over yet. The arrangement is for the Hulberts to do our threshing, and for Dad to partially compensate them by providing a team and wagon for their harvest. And they have more to thresh than us. So, on a crisp October morning a few days later we harness up our team, hitch them to the rack and head down the half mile dirt road to their threshing site. Molly and Dolly are sufficiently reluctant to go to work that they plod along very slowly. They even try to turn off into every one of the five intersections along the road, two of which are overgrown with grass and haven’t been used in years.

Coming home after their hard day’s work is a different story. They need no guidance or encouragement to head straight home at the briskest pace they have displayed all day. When home and unharnessed they go to the trough for a long drink and then restorative roll in the dust of the barnyard.

Part Four - Help From Machines, is the last piece of this blog, and describes how our farm work changes after Molly and Dolly are gone, plus a few related vignettes.

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[1] Coiling takes a bit of pitchfork skill because the 2-foot-high igloo-shaped mound of hay should resemble thatching to shed the rain.  

A Kid Grows Up on a Farm - Part Two: The Other Farmyard Buildings

 Previous: Part 1: The Barn

About 50 steps from the barn in the direction of the house is the Milkhouse. It is a two-room 8’x12’ structure with a square, roof-top ventilator and brick chimney projecting from the cedar-shingled roof. Outside the front door a small concrete pad with the date 1935 etched in one corner, indicates its year of construction. Dad tells us he had a carpenter get materials and help him built it in exchange for a cow. That was during the depth of the Depression when lumber and labour were cheap, and money was scarce. He also mentions that men from Edmonton were walking farm roads looking for work, not necessarily for money, but merely in exchange for food and shelter.

Activities in the milkhouse are simple. In the entrance room the pail of milk from each cow is placed on the hook of a ceiling-hung scale, and the weight recorded on a wall chart according to the date and cow’s name before it is strained into eight-gallon milk cans[1] At the end of milking, I lift the cans into the four-foot-long metal-lined tank of water to cool. The second room holds a large, galvanized sink in which we wash and rinse the pails and strainer. In winter wash water is heated on the wood and coal heater fed from the neighbouring woodpile and buckets of coal from the house. I don’t mind the washing up because it is easier and cleaner than milking and also brings me the satisfaction of a job completed.

The Pump House is a small (8’x10’) barn-red building that houses the well-head and pump. Four angle-iron supports that pierce the roof are the base of the thirty-foot high Aermotor windmill overhead. The west wall bisects a 6’ round wooden water trough, half inside and half out for access by thirsty cows and horses. A separate low trench-like trough for the sheep is filled by overflow from the bigger trough.

We fill the livestock troughs (and the house pressure tank) with a pump that has two sources of power. When a breeze is blowing it is hooked up to the reciprocating wooden rod connected to the windmill’s wind-driven power unit at the top. When there is little or no wind (usually the hottest days in summer and the coldest in winter!) it is connected to the pump handle to employ our muscle power instead. It only takes about two days for the cows, calves, and horses to empty the 300-gallon tank. I figure it takes about 10 pump strokes to produce a gallon of water, so that’s about 3000 strokes to fill it. If so, and we continuously pump 30 strokes per minute, it would take two hours to fill it. However, we usually don’t need to pump that much at one time.

Our reliance on the wind to reduce our workload heightens my sensitivity to any breeze. If there is enough wind, I lift the windmill brake lever and happily pass the job to nature. Sometimes at night after a very calm day I hear Dad go outside. When I hear the rustle of the poplar leaves through my basement bedroom window, I know why.

Wintertime ice on the tank has thirsty cows mooing with frustration. To melt the ice we use  barrel-sized wood and coal tank heater that floats in the tank inside the building. In very cold weather we fire it up to keep some water ice-free. If this is not enough, I swing the ice axe into action. The weather may be freezing, but this task, and the hand pumping keep me plenty warm.

Ours is the only deep-drilled well in the neighborhood and it yields an endless supply of very soft water. Other wells are shallower and produce hard water. Neighbor Jinora Matheson drags in her horse drawn barrel-bearing stone-boat for her laundry water when rainwater fails. Pete Yohemas comes to get theirs in his rickety old 1928 Chev truck.  Sadly, in 1950 a seismic crew testing for oil or gas on the road allowance nearby set off an underground exploratory explosion that not only shakes the foundation of the house but collapses the uncased walls of our deep well. This not only drastically reduces the flow but also makes the water much harder, as it is now partly fed from a shallower source.

The single car Garage is close to the pumphouse and connected to it by a steel wire-mesh gate that divides the house yard from the barnyard. It is clad in barn-red cedar-siding and has two large, hinged doors at the back, and an entrance door at the front. Inside is the ’37 Chev, a workbench with a vise, and an inverted milk-wagon rein-weight serving as an anvil. Tool-holding spikes line the wall over the bench. A large cabinet hangs on the opposite wall which, when opened reveals drawers of nuts, bolts, springs, among the many small items needed on a farm. White painted letters on the brown door indicate its contents: “Sundries”. There are axes, shovels, hoes, some mower blades, and a scythe just inside the door. One job I have is clamping dull cutting tools in the vise and sharpening them with an emery stone.

Not much farm work happens in the garage, but I do enjoy using it for creative endeavors such as carving vise-held wood into little boats and aeroplanes using my jackknife and the drawknife (a two-handled blade we use to peel bark from rails). I also assemble arrow guns from grooved boards, rubber bands cut from old tire tubes, and a clothespin for a trigger. Arrows are made from a thin strip of cedar shingle with a fin left at the thin end.

For fun, we shoot arrows at each other from a safe distance to see how close we can come. But they are not always fun. One day I was testing my accuracy by shooting at a chipmunk running across the top rail of the sheep fence. To my surprise and sadness, I hit and killed it. That was the last time I ever saw a chipmuck in our yard.

About 50 steps northeast of the milkhouse are the two Sheep Sheds and surrounding rail corrals. The smaller sharp-peaked shingle roofed shed is set on a three-foot-high log wall. The other shed has four-foot-high log walls supporting a flat roof of spruce poles and willow branches covered with a thick layer of straw. The sheep use both sheds for shade in the summer and shelter from winter storms in the winter. Rain doesn’t seem to bother them with their lanolin-coated water-repellant wool.

Hampshires in the North Field

In front of the sheds and across the small sheep yard there is a log-rail holding pen and a rail-enclosed haystack enclosure. Every evening I herd our flock of twenty-five black faced Hampshires from the field into the shelter of their yard to protect them from coyotes or neighbour’s dogs, counting them as they pass through the entrance gate to be sure none are missing.

Most sheep work happens in the holding pen. Dick or I catch an animal and hold it while Dad trims the wool from the eyes of those with very woolly faces, and from the rear end if there are any adherences. Next the wool is parted at various points to apply pyrethrum powder to keep the ticks under control. Overgrown and misshapen hoofs are also trimmed.

The busiest times with the sheep are lambing and shearing. Lambing happens as the snow is melting in April. Most mature ewes produce twins while first time mothers are more likely to have single births. Occasionally older ewes will have triplets. If Dad notices a first-time mother having difficulty, we simply get a rope, tie it to the lamb’s emerging front legs, and pull, much the same as we do for heifers having trouble with their first calf. When the lambs are a few weeks old their tails are docked, and the ram lambs not being kept for breeding are castrated.[2]

It's now May. The sheep are panting on hot days so it’s time to remove their winter coats. The empty cowbarn is the shearing site as it is the only place Dad can plug in the electric shears. Dick and I bring the ewes into the barn one at a time for a procedure that at first fascinates me: Dad grabs the two-hundred-pound animal, pulls its head back with his left hand and pushes its rump down with his right, causing it to sit on its hind end. Now that the docile sheep is leaning back against his legs, I hand him the shears to clear the wool from its under-side from its head to its rear end. After successive long strokes shaving most of the right-hand side, he leans the passive ewe to the left to clear to the middle of its back. After trimming the wool from its right legs and head he turns to the other side to repeat the process and complete the job. 

Dad gathers the wool and ties it into a eight-pound bundle (about the size of two fat pillows), for me to lift into the seven-foot-high woolsack hanging from the barn rafters. When the sack is half full, it’s my task to climb the step ladder and lower myself into the sack to pack the wool with my feet. By the end of the day, we are all well oiled by lanolin.

When released from the barn, the ewe bleats for its lambs, but the formerly grey bulky beast has been turned into a cream-coloured skinny wool-less spectacle. The confused offspring are reluctant to approach this strange looking creature with their mother’s voice until eventually convinced of her identity.

Our flock of sheep fills the big wool sack, which is then stitched up and loaded on Pete Yohemas’s old Chev truck for delivery to the Canadian Co-operative Wool Growers collection depot in Edmonton.

Next to the sheep sheds sits the Henhouse, a south-facing 8’x10’ shed-roofed building with a smaller wire-fronted scratching shelter attached. The front has a creaky old wooden door and a small four-paned window. Three thin spruce poles span the back of the room serving as roosts for the two dozen New Hampshire Red hens, a dual-purpose breed that are reasonably good layers and are also good for meat. (Unlike the skinny White Leghorn egg-laying machines). There are six straw-lined foot-square waist-high laying boxes on the left and an opening to the scratching shed on the right.

In summer, the hens are little work. We make sure they have water and some chopped oats in their feeder. They forage the whole yard for grass shoots, insects, and seeds, supplemented by the fruit and vegetable waste that Mom has us spread in the yard. Eggs are collected every day and brought to the house basement for storage until used or sold. One day during the usually boring job of gathering the eggs, I reach under a hen in a laying box. There is nothing there, and she settles back down again when I remove my hand. Guessing that she was about to lay an egg, I put my hand back and wait. In less than five minutes a very fresh egg drops into my hand.

Like all farm animals, in winter chickens are more work: fresh water every day because it freezes at night, and plenty on chopped oats and oyster shell to ensure hard eggshells. The only heat in the henhouse is their minimal body heat and the sun through the window. Frostbite can abbreviate the combs of some during very cold weather.

Dad can tell which hens have ceased to regularly produce eggs, so they eventually become the source of a chicken dinner. Every two or three years he orders a box of a dozen pullet chicks from the South Edmonton Hatchery to raise for flock replacements. I ask Dad why the day-old chicks we get are all female. His answer intrigues me, “The hatchery hires especially skilled “sexers” to sort them, but I don’t understand how they do it.”[3]  

Across the hay yard from the Barn is the Implement Shed housing the seed drill, binder, mower, sulky plow (a one-bottom horse-drawn riding plow), single disc, hay rake, walking plow, diamond-tooth harrows, harrow-cart, and 50-bushel grain wagon. In one corner is a toilet enclosure for use when we are not in or near the house (and which was the only facility ever available to the hired man). 

The final farm building is the Granary, about forty steps beyond the Implement shed. A 12’x16’ wood frame building, it has a large central door opening to an alleyway with two grain storage bins on either side. Two of the bins hold the oat crop from the fall harvest, one is empty, and the other contains oat chop ground for Dad by neighbor Arnold Daly, as we do not yet have the machinery to do it ourselves. 

The first job in the spring is preparing oats to use as seed for the coming season. This is accomplished by putting oats through the hand-powered fanning mill in the granary alleyway. The machine is about four feet high and three feet square. It has a hand crank on one side and a hopper on top into which we shovel the grain. Its purpose is to remove weed seeds from the oats before planting using two methods. As it feeds from the hopper the oats pass sequentially over two slightly sloping screens that are shaken by a link to the crank, thereby allowing seeds smaller than oats to pass through and be diverted, while the partially cleaned oats to drop to the next step. Here the partly cleaned seed drops through a blast of air from a large fan separating lighter seed such as wild oats from the oats to be seeded. As clean seed comes out at a lower level, I shovel it into the empty bin while Dick turns the crank, reversing our roles occasionally until the dusty job is done. We are now ready for the first fieldwork of the year: spring seeding.

Fieldwork is the focus of Part Three of the blog. Here is an aerial photo of the Farm and Salisbury Corner.

The farm amidst our neighbours at Salisbury Corner

[1] Dad’s interest in herd improvement led him to enrol in the Alberta Herd Improvement Program and later the Holstein Record of Production Program. Both require a record of production for each cow. One of our best producers was Linda with 18,000 lbs. (over 8000 litres) of milk in 10 months.

[2] (Warning! Graphic details) Lamb tail-docking is not a fun job. I hold a lamb while Dad squeezes a very heavy  hand-held clamp on its tailhead. This crushes the bone and allows the tail to be cut off with a very sharp knife while clamped. Before Dad unclamps, I tie twine around the stump to minimize bleeding. In spite of it’s cruelty I prefer this method to the one used when I was younger. In that case the tail was pulled through a hole in a metal plate while it was burned off with a red-hot iron producing a very noxious burnt-flesh odour.

By contrast castration is bloodless. The heavy clamp is applied to the scrotum, crushing the blood vessels to the testicles so they do not develop. 

[3] I later learn in my Aggie poultry class that the chick is held upside down so it’s vent can be opened and examined for subtle differences in rudimentary sex organs.

A Kid Grows Up on a Farm - Part One: The Barn

This is an account of some activities dredged up from memories of my teen years on our small dairy farm a few miles east of Edmonton Alberta. Although coming-of-age teenage years have physical, social, and psychological growth components, it is the physical initiation into more farm responsibility that is the focus of this blog.

Although Dad did introduce labour-saving improvements during my teen years, the accounts that follow begin with the pre-mechanized time of my early teens. In most farm work, brother Dick and I were partners, so we are both involved in much of what I relate. Dad usually worked alongside us, directing, mentoring, and leading by example.

Our farm activities are described in four parts: work in and around the barn; other farmyard activities; field work; and post mechanization changes. Each part is the focus of a separate blog. 

The Purebred Holstein Herd beside the Old Barn 

The autumn of 1946 brings a memorable change in my life. It is only a couple of weeks after my thirteenth birthday when Dad, at his usual Saturday after-breakfast list of chores for the day, makes a shocking announcement: “George will be leaving when we finish threshing the oats”, he tells us, “You boys are old enough now that we can manage the farm work without a hired man.”

George has been our hired man since I started school. He is a no-nonsense, kind-hearted, hard-working WWI veteran who feels to me like a member of our family. But what sets him apart is that the few steps he takes between the top of the stairs and his nearby mealtime chair is his only access to the main floor of the house. This is the way it is with our hired men; they are confined to an allocated basement area with a curtained sleeping area, washstand, and wide-open shower.

I will miss George and his good humour and friendly teasing.  If Dick and I are still ensconced in our cozy basement-room bed when he comes in from the morning milking, we risk having him grab each of us by the ankle and drag us onto the cold floor.

But I am feeling a little uneasy about the news of George’s departure. Can Dick and I really do all the work he was doing? How much of my savoured free time will I lose? However, I am resigned to my fate, and even feel a bit more grown up because of a larger role in the farm operation.

The setting for this role is described below. 

Farmyard Activities – The Barn

The Barn is the hub of barnyard activity. It is a small (compared to neighbouring dairy farms) loftless structure housing a twelve-stanchion cow section and a four-stall horse stable. There are also two calf pens, one for the two or three heifers being kept as herd replacements, and one for a couple of small calves.

The Barn in its later years

The cow barn is the site of the final step in the conversion of field crops into the milk that is traded for the funds that must sustain two essential needs: family livelihood, and the farm operation. Although I never hear it, I imagine the allocation between them requires serious discussion between Mom and Dad.

In summer the cows are only in their stalls for milking and to consume a small helping of oat chop spiked with some mineral supplements to maintain both their health and milk production. Milking time is 6:30, both AM and PM. Dick or I will call them to the barn (Come Boss, Come Boss) in our loudest voice. If they are too intent on grazing, or too far away to hear, I have the carefree task of heading out across the meadow to get them, while Dick doles out chop into their mangers. In the evening they could be anywhere in the West Field between the barnyard and the “Far Corner”, half a mile away. And of course, they like the Far Corner during a rainstorm because of the tree shelter there! In that event I face the drizzle and, wearing Dad's soon-to-be-soaked old cloth raincoat, head out in their direction.

After the evening milking, they are directed into the Front Field, with its quarter-mile limit, to save us getting up so early in morning to fetch them. Besides, if the wind is right, they can hear our calls. If they ignore our shouted invitation, Prince, our border collie helps herd them in, zigzagging behind them and nipping the hind leg of any that dare to stop to grab a quick mouthful of grass. Prince is excited by all the farm animals. When I say, “Let’s get the cows” he speeds off to get them. When I say, “Let’s get the horses”, he’s off in their direction, not to get them, because they ignore him, but just to get excited by their movement.

Sometimes the cows are all the barnyard, just waiting to be milked, depriving me of a joyful carefree stroll (in fine weather). Blue skies, gently rolling knolls of green, and the bubbling notes of the meadowlark create a feeling of absolute bliss for me, and maybe for Prince too, during this happy chore.

The cows enter the barn in the order of their herd status, the dominant one first and the most timid last. They know their stalls and head straight for them - except when an unprincipled early entrant grabs a mouthful of chop from the manger of her tardier stanchion-mate before she enters. Dick and I go from stall to stall fastening a small chain around their necks. It slides on a vertical bar so that they are comfortable both standing and lying down.

Each cow is named. There is Daisy and Jane and Two-Spot and Lucy and all the others. Lucy is special because she is a registered purebred Holstein. Her surname is the farm name of Wynthorn, derived from Mom’s first name Winnifred, and the “thorn” from Haythorne, and her middle name is Daleford, from her sire’s lineage. She is the mother of Laura and Linda, the two other purebreds, all models of body confirmation and milk production excellence. However, they all possess one less desirable genome – their teats have a high resistance to the flow of milk. I try to avoid having to milk more than one of them.

Leila, a descendent of Linda, beside the new barn 

A milking machine is still just a hope when I am fourteen, so we milk by hand. The teats and lower udder are wiped clean and the obliging bovine “lets her milk down” (relaxes any flow restraint) in preparation for the extraction. During his first visit to farm, Jack, an agriculturally ignorant friend of city cousin Bob, watches this procedure and asks, “Do they like that?”. An odd question I think, as I naively answer, “Well, they don’t seem to mind”.

Bob’s city friends bring both amusement and embarrassment. On his first visit to the barn and viewing Daisy’s large pendulous udder Stuart exclaims, “Wow, look at the nuts on that one!”.

On one of Jack and Bob’s visits, I boast I can swing a pail with a couple of quarts of milk in a full circle over my head and not spill a drop. Swinging it in bigger and bigger arcs I finally go for the full orbit. My swaggering pride blinds me to the fact that I am standing directly beneath the steel bar that anchors the sides of the barn in place. Of course, the pail stops at its highest point and drenches my head with warm milk. It is a riot for everyone except ego-deflated me.

At the start of milking, I select a cow that has most recently calved, as it is starting to drip milk in anticipation of being milked. Balancing on my little three-legged stool, with my head tucked against her flank and the 2½ gallon tinned pail squeezed between my knees, I grasp the two front teats to start, producing two alternating streams of milk. Gently at first because her teats may be sore enough to trigger a quick kick that could knock me off my stool and sending the milk pail flying. Some cows are skilled at a less extreme method of showing their discomfort: whipping the side of the milker’s face with the coarse hairy end of their tail.  My countermeasure is to tuck the offending tail under my cap to hold it against their flank.

New calves only get to nurse from their mother for a day or so before we teach them to drink out of a bucket. To do this, I let them suck on two of my fingers and then submerge my hand in the half-pail of warm milk. However, because my fingers are below the surface, the calf’s nose is too. Although it is getting milk between my fingers there is considerable snorting and bubble blowing. After a few days of repeating this procedure I withdraw my fingers and the calf continues to drink, eventually avoiding nose submersion.

Another task with new-born heifer calves is to apply caustic soda to the horn bumps on top of their heads to stop the growth of horns. This is to prevent them from possibly injuring each other later in life. Male calves are sold immediately to farmers who raise them for veal or beef.

Hand milkers use one of two methods of milking: wet or dry. Wet milking is accomplished by squirting milk to moisten the thumb and forefinger, grasping the top of the teat between them, and then sliding them down to express the milk. Dry milking begins with wrapping the thumb and forefinger tightly around the top of the teat, and then squeezing the other fingers in sequence down the teat to create a kind of peristaltic action. Hired man George liked to wet milk, but Dad insists that Dick and I dry milk, I think because it is more sanitary.

On finishing a cow, we carry her milk to the nearby milk house and pour it through a strainer funnel into an 8-gallon milk can used for shipping it to the dairy. Two cans are partly filled each milking, with three or sometimes four cans ready for the milk truck’s arrival at about 8:15 each morning, no matter what the weather. I am impressed by driver Bert’s strength as he carries two 90-pound cans, one in each hand, and deftly swings them, one at a time, up onto the four-foot-high deck of his truck. 

Of the twelve cows in the barn, two are “dry”, that is, they are no longer asked to produce milk because they will be calving or “coming fresh” within the next two months. Each cow produces a calf every 12-14 months. Their gestation period of 283 days means that they are pregnant for most of the time they are producing milk, necessitating the need for mineral supplements to maintain both milk production and good health. 

On average it takes fifteen minutes to milk a cow, so Dick and I are done in just over an hour. Dad often helps, both to lighten our load and keep order. His presence suspends our usual diversions like squirting milk at each other or the barn cat mewing in the aisle.

A satisfied feeling accompanies our untying the cows and turning them back to the field. The next job is scrubbing the milk pails and strainer in the milk house wash tubs. When done, about an hour and a half after starting, we head for the house to change and wash up for breakfast if it’s morning, and to freedom after a day’s work if it’s evening. Mornings, we bring the daily milk supply tom the house in a two-quart beige enamel kettle.

Winter changes everything. It’s dark and twenty below (about -30C) as I tread the squeaky snow-packed path toward the anticipated warmth of the cow barn. I swing open the heavy four-foot door and enter in a cloud of fog, as warm moist air meets cold. The combined odors of hay, straw, cow, and manure might offend the nose of a city slicker, but to me they are an essential part of the welcoming warmth. Flicking on the light brings a chorus of soft moos conveying requests to be milked and fed. Most cows are lying on their packed-straw beds, but soon get to their feet and immediately expel body waste accumulated during the night. Body heat keeps the barn well above freezing, and the inch or so of frost on the multipaned windows offers a bit more insulation.

Since the barn has no hayloft, hay is stored in the hay yard beside the barn. During the summer we had built half a dozen ten-foot-high stacks resembling huge loaves of bread. At feeding time hay is peeled off one or two of these stacks, thrown to the snowy ground, and carried with a three-tined hayfork through the smaller side door into the barn. After the morning milking each cow is rewarded with a small forkful of alfalfa, brome, or timothy hay, or often a field mixture of all three.

Winter requires two other barn chore times besides milking: the 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM feeding and watering. On school days Dad does them in the morning while Dick and I are responsible for them in the afternoon when we get home from school. While the herd is out taking their turns at the water trough, any uneaten hay is forked out of their mangers and spread on the snow in the barnyard for the horses and sheep to finish picking over. Then each manger is stocked with oat chop and minerals in proportion to their current milk production, i.e., a 25 quart-per-day cow would get more that one producing less. We also replenish their oat-straw bedding to maintain their comfortable beds.

Back in their stalls, and after having finished their oat chop, I give each a generous forkful of hay to munch on. There is no alleyway in front of the mangers, as there is in bigger barns, so I must squeeze between their bellies from behind with my fork-load of hay – not always an easy task. Afternoon chores are simply a repeat of those in the morning.

There is one more important and less pleasant task – cleaning the barn. We don’t yet have a manure spreader (the only implement the manufacturer won’t stand behind) but instead use a stone-boat. It is a 5’x7’ plank platform on two skids. It gets its name from its use to remove stones from a field without having to lift them more than a few inches. It is parked just far enough from the barn door so that cows can get past it. Every second day we clean out the manure from the gutter behind the cows. It is a soupy mixture of feces, urine, and straw that has fallen in from their bedding. The tools we use are a five-tined manure fork[1] and a scoop-shovel. The stone-boat is loaded by building a wall of forked manure around the perimeter and filling the center with scoops of brown liquid.

The calf pens are only cleaned out in the spring. We regularly add straw to keep them clean all winter. A foot or more of manure is laboriously removed, layer by layer, come spring, and spread on the field in the same manner as the cow manure described below.

The stone-boat is now loaded with manure, but my job is only half done. The next task is spreading the manure on a  field most in need of fertilizer. In very cold weather this job can’t be put off for a day or the load will freeze solid.

Molly and Dolly, the aging white Percheron mares are called on to pull the load to the field. I interrupt their munching and lounging at the straw pile beside the granary and escort them into the horse barn. After brushing off any snow from their backs, I slide their padded leather breast collars up over theirs necks and fasten them at the top. Then, seizing the cold-stiff harness from the wall pegs behind them, I throw it over their backs. The harness consists of brass-nob-topped hames[2], back and belly straps, and traces that fasten to the doubletree attached to any load being pulled. The hames are buckled into place, the belly strap fastened, and the traces placed over their backs. Molly and Dolly have been very patient so far but show some resistance to having the freezing metal bit of the bridle shoved into their mouth. Warming it a bit in my bare hands makes no difference. Eventually they open their teeth and admit the freezing bar so that I can flip the bridle over their ears and strap it on. There is very little heat in this part of the barn, so on the coldest days I really must steel myself for the task. The life lesson her for me is that, regardless of discomfort or unpleasantness, one simply does what must be done.

The rest is easer. I lead Molly and Dolly outside, stand them side by side, go back and grab the long leather reins from the barn pegs. I thread them through loops on the hames and clip them to the bit rings on the bridles. Now they are a team that I can drive to the stone-boat, take the traces from their backs, and hook them to the doubletree attached by a clevis to the stone-boat. Now I say “let’s go” and make a clicking sound in my cheek and in response Molly and Dolly lean forward, and with a slight jerk move the load off its frozen base.

As we glide over the snow toward the field being fertilized, there is no place for me to ride. I snow-stumble along behind, assisted by the pull of the reins. Using the manure fork, I spread the load as evenly and thinly on the snow as I can before going back the barn to drop off the stone-boat, unhitch, unharness, and reward Molly and Dolly with a forkful of hay.

Part Two of the blog - The Other Farmyard Buildings - describes activities in the other farmyard buildings.

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[1] Farm forks are specialized: a three-tined fork for hay; four longer tines for straw; five tines closer together for manure.

[2] curved steel arms that fit into a groove in the front of the collar

The Egg Collection

I open the two flat yellowing boxes and there they are! Each one resting on a pad of cotton batting in its own little hand-made cardboard cell. There’s one egg from each of many birds around the farm. Their sight brings back fond memories of the tranquil spring days when brother Dick and I, still not yet teens, assembled them. I can easily recall my excitement when the summer birds return.

Fields and forests round the farm are coming back to life. The stronger sun and longer days bring harbingers of Spring on warmer southern winds. They’re back! Stark black against the dazzling sun-soaked snow, one settles on a weathered lane-way post. The first Crow!

Joyful promise floods my winter-weary mind. This oh-so-welcome sign of Spring brings thoughts of other feathered friends arriving soon. In my mind I see it all unfold; Robins will be next, followed by a multitude of summer visitors returning to their summer haunts. I feel impatient for the symphony of song and colour soon to saturate my eyes and ears!

The birds of winter have their place. They are much-loved friends that share the harsh Alberta cold; welcome sights in a white and green-less land. Among them, bustling Chickadees, cackling Magpies, sleek crested Cedar Waxwings, and ever-present House Sparrows. They brighten cold short days and remind me of the avian life to come. But now it’s May and our summer birds are back. Even though they spend more time in warmer southern climes than here, they are our birds. This is where they mate, sing their little hearts out, and raise their families. Their trip south is only to survive until returning to their rightful homes right here on my beloved farm.

Their presence brings the yard and garden fully back to life. There is action on the house eave bracket above the sandbox where, when younger, we spent many hours of play. Robins are shooing interloping sparrows from their last-years’ nest, and after completing mud-based renos, they move back in. The Wrens return to the little green birdhouse on the garden gatepost. Their warbling trills, drifting through the open kitchen window bring sighs of deep appreciation from my Mom. I now begin to feel that they are more than ‘just another little bird’ because of the joy they bring.

Blackbird attacking a Crow

Blackbirds arrive to populate the maze of caragana hedges all around the house and garden. I once counted eight pairs of glistening jet-black yellow-eyed males, and drab and dusky females. Blackbirds are aggressive defenders of their nesting sites. If I get too near, they dive close to my head with a chip, chip, chip to drive me off. When a hawk or crow flies by, even when quite high, a duty-bound male flies up to intercept. It makes passes at the big bird’s head until it moves away, just like a war-time fighter plane rising to attack an enemy bomber.

Oriole Nest

The splashy orange and black Orioles have settled in the poplar grove between the east garden and the road. Their nest is close to our tree hut where I sit, basking in the poplar-perfumed air enriched by their melodic song.  High in the waving boughs, I spot their grass and horsehair nest. It looks just like the nuts on George Daly’s bull, pendulous in the breeze. I wonder, “How can I get one of their eggs for our collection?”.

I don’t know why Dick and I start an egg collection.  It may have been because of curiosity. “I wonder what a Flicker’s egg looks like?” Or it may have been the challenge. The nest might be in a hollow tree with an entrance too small for my hand. It might be in tall grass and almost impossible to find. Still others are high in trees that may have no branches below fifteen feet or so.

Collecting an egg from nests on the ground or in low bushes is a simple task. Nests in tall trees present the challenge of getting an egg safely to the ground. We have two methods: if there are no intervening branches, I toss the egg out from the tree and Dick catches it below in the soft lining of his peaked cap. If there are branches in the way, I place the egg under my hat and carefully climb down. There is another way, used but only once: one day I climb a Crow’s nest and have the egg ready to throw down to Dick. But there are branches in the way and I have no hat on. What to do? Well, I pop it in my mouth, nearly falling in my frantic scramble down, successfully hitting the ground before I have to swallow. After that, I spit for quite a while, but we have our Crow’s egg.

Dick and I (with Owen)
set for egg hunting, 1944

Our goal is to get an egg from as many of our bird species as possible. And from what we see, it doesn’t seem to hurt their ability to raise a family. If we return to the scene of our theft, sometimes we find that another egg has been laid to replace the pilfered one.

As our collection grows, my fascination with the rich diversity of bird habits and plumage extends to their eggs as well. For example, the egg of an Oriole is quite long and narrow and is blue gray with random splotches of tarry black. The Flicker’s egg is almost round and pearly white. Why has Mother Nature created them that way? Maybe it’s because the Orioles nest can sway wildly in the wind and longer eggs won’t roll around so much. And the Flicker’s nest is deep in the core of a solid tree-trunk where there is no movement and no need for camouflage.

On viewing our collection, some eggs recall a story:

The Defender: Collecting eggs is not without its risks. It’s a warm day in May before the leaves are out, and pal Harvey, Dick and I are tramping through Alcock’s bush, just across the fence from our “Spruces” bush. I spot a crow’s nest about ten feet off the ground in a willow clump. “There’s a bird on it”, Dick whispers in excitement.  Harv pipes up,” I see it and it’s kind of brown; it’s not a crow!”. There is a pair of tufts on its google-eyed head so we know it’s an owl. I am standing right below the nest, readying to scramble up to purloin an egg for our collection. I shake the slender trunk to scare her off and look up to see her stir. Her tail is visible over the edge of the nest as she rises and sets herself to fly the other way. Then it happens! A forceful grey cloacal discharge splatters on my upturned face before she flees the nest. Harv and Dick are unsympathetically overtaken with glee at my spitting, sputtering, and swearing. Eventually I share the mirth. We get the egg. I blow it (put a hole in both ends to blow into one so the contents come out the other) and put it in our collection with the caption Screech Owl. On further checking we see that species is not resident in Alberta and determine it to be a Long-eared Owl.  

The Faker: My shortcut to Harvey’s place across the road is through the sparsely treed and closely grazed ram pasture behind the chicken house. This Spring a pair of Killdeers is always there.

A Killdeer's "nest"

I love these birds; their flitting graceful flight and plaintive “killdeer” cry. They must have a nest on the ground somewhere near. I search and search but see no sign of it. When they start their diversionary acts, I’ll know I must be close. At first, one of them, say the female, does the snuggle down where she settles on the ground in a snuggling manner as if sitting on a nest of eggs. “Maybe that really is her nest”, I think at first, but of course, it never is. She is leading me away.

The other ruse is the broken wing. When she leaves her fake nest, she doesn’t just fly away. Instead she flutters, seemingly crippled, along the ground, one wing dragging. She looks an easy mark for any predator around. I get close and off she flies, and I’m quite sure, away from the nest.

I don’t give up, and finally I see it - right below my feet. I must have passed it several times. There is no real nest at all, only four eggs in a slight dip in the ground. They blend with the turf in perfect camouflage. I wonder about their shape, quite pointed at one end. I now see why. Since there is no nest to cradle them, if any other shape, they’d roll away. Having all points all facing in, they are a stable clutch.

The Freeloader: Small groups of small brown “blackbirds” follow our Holstein cows around the front pasture feeding on the insects they attract or stir up. I wonder where they nest so I can add an egg to our collection. Our much-consulted bird book answers this. We learn that these lazy Cowbirds don’t build nests. Instead the females range far and wide depositing their eggs in nests of any other species they can find, leaving them to raise their young. To me this just seems wrong. These Cowbirds are shirking their parental responsibilities and it isn’t fair! For example, when they deposit an egg in the nest of a much smaller Yellow Warbler, the larger taller gaping beak of the earlier-hatching Cowbird chick will hog much food intended for the Warbler chicks, reducing their chances of survival. 

A Cowbird's egg in a Yellow Warbler's nest

The bird book says that Cowbirds lay a lot of eggs because some birds they target will destroy the alien egg. I wonder if this is one reason why each species’ eggs have unique colours and patterns – so that Cowbird’s deposits can more easily be identified and removed. However, over time,we read, Cowbirds can adapt the colouring of their eggs to match their primary host. But a human code of conduct cannot be applied to birds, or any other creatures in the wild. Nature finds a way for all life forms to adapt, and this is simply one of them.

The Butcher: There’s a dead mouse impaled on a small branch. It is close to a twig-grass-wool nest in one of the Manitoba Maple trees across the potato patch next to the road. The robin-sized grey black-winged bird perched nearby has a black “bandit” mask across its eyes and a large black beak with tiny hook at the end. The bird book tells me it is a Loggerhead Shrike, also known as a Butcher Bird. At first, I think its a scavenger. On reading more about it, I learn that as well as feeding on insects, it is also a ferocious predator of small animals and birds. With no apparent talons, how can this be so?

I read on. Their sharp hooked beak is used to pierce the neck of prey, severing the spinal cord. This paralyzing act is followed by a twist of the head to break the neck. The prey is then are hung upon a twig and accessed for meaty morsels as required. These birds strike me as the kung fu masters of the avian world!

Ollie when he arrived

The Pet: It would be so much fun to have a pet bird! Not just a canary or a budgie in a cage, but one outdoors where it can fly around. But what bird? Most young that I have seen are already wild when nearly fully grown. If taken when too young then I wouldn’t know what, or how, to feed it.Reed’s Bush is a twenty-five-acre wooded paradise right next to our North Field. It’s home to many little birds I know by sight and sound though not by name. The big birds I do know; the Ruffed Grouse on it’s nest under the Wild Black Current bush; the Red-tailed Hawk nest high in a towering spruce; and the Great Horned Owl nesting atop an abandoned Magpie nest in a willow clump at the edge of a small clearing.

In mid-May, most birds are building nests and laying eggs. The Owls are not though. They’re many weeks ahead and past that stage. Two half-grown fluffy chicks are already sitting upright in the nest, slowly blinking at me as I peer over the brim of their coarse twig home. I say to Dick, “Let’s take one for a pet”. “Too young” he says, and I agree, “We’ll come back in a week or two.”

When we return, they’ve left the nest. One Owlet is within reach, perched on a dipping willow branch. Amid the screeching dives of upset parents, I grab it as it flaps its yet unready wings. Dick takes off his jacket and we carefully wrap it up and hurry home. My excitement swells: we are going to have our very own pet owl!

At this stage of my life my reverence for life was largely undeveloped, evidenced by both the taking of the owlet and the way we feed it. Owls are carnivores. And what does a carnivore eat but meat. The question now is, “Where do we get the meat?” Dick and I have no money to buy any and there are no butcher shops around from which to get waste scraps. So, we think, “What would the parents feed it?”. The answer, of course, is other birds and animals.

What Ollie looked like when he left

The most easily obtainable are gophers and mice that we trap, and chicks from bird’s nests. We decide to take the latter from the most prolific and least desired species, the House Sparrow, scouring the farm and countryside for every nest to raid. Our pet, now named “Ollie” is well fed.

By August, Ollie is fully grown and fledged. He perches atop the barn or house where he endures aerial harassment by defensive Robins and Blackbirds. (We assume it is a “he” but really don’t have a clue). He is fun to feed. I stand in the middle of the barnyard holding a dead mouse by the tail, and loudly call “Here Ollie, Here Ollie!”. He launches from the barn roof, dropping near the ground to pick up speed toward me. For a moment I think I’ll hold the mouse and let him snatch it from my hand. Then better sense prevails and just as he gets close, I toss it in the air. His deadly talons seize the mouse and take it to the ground nearby. He reaches down, and with his beak, he lifts it by its head. Three or four slow neck-stretching swallows and it’s gone!

Now it’s September. Ollie must be hunting on his own because he’s seldom in our yard. And finally, he comes around no more. I’m sure he’s now in a place like Reed’s Bush living with his fellow Owls. I am grateful for his time with us and glad that he is free.

The Rescue: It is early July in the year following Ollie’s departure. I have just finished coiling alfalfa hay (forking it into small piles to cure) in the nine-acre field at the west end of the farm. On the neighbour’s side of our chokecherry-lined border fence there is a Red-Tailed Hawk’s nest in the tallest creek-side Black Poplar tree. Activity around the nest is a sure sign of nestlings. Of course, I must go and take a look.

I size up the climb. Here I need to say that I think I am the best tree-climber in the neighborhood. To me there is no tree I cannot scale. From shinnying with legs locked around the trunk, to assessing the strength of small dead branches, and being prepared in case they snap, I have learned it all. I know that Mom likes me to have fun but is reserved in her support because of the wear and tear it causes to my clothes and the risks to me that she imagines.

But back to the climb at hand. There are no branches for the first ten feet or so, but the large rough-barked trunk is a much easier shinny than a thinner smooth-barked tree. After monkeying up this limbless section, I wind up through the solid branches to the two-foot wide twig nest set against the now slender height-diminished trunk. The flat nest is strewn with partially eaten gopher carcasses, some crawling with maggots and emitting a powerful stench. There is one nearly fully-fledged young Hawk. On taking a close look, I see movement in its ear holes. They both are full of squirming maggots! I am torn; if I leave it maybe the maggots will reach its brain. Or maybe they are not a problem and will eventually disappear. Perhaps the parents will take care of it.

I decide not to risk leaving it, so I tuck the young Hawk inside my jacket, scramble down the tree, and take it home. Not knowing what else to do, I pour kerosene into both ears. This does the job because the next day the ears are clear. It is such a beautiful bird and even larger than Ollie. I think it must be female, because the bird book says that, like all raptors, Red-Tail and Great Horned Owl mature females are about a pound heavier than males. What to do with her? At first, I think, “I’ll just feed her for a few days and then take her back to the nest”. But I didn’t. We feed her like Ollie, and she comes for food when called, just like Ollie. However, within in two weeks she is flying and beginning to soar. After a few more days she returns to the wild leaving her temporary residence in the farmyard.

There are many other birds that grace our place. Among them are the formal-looking Tree Swallows in the hollow old poplar beside the garage; boat-tailed Purple Grackles with the woolly nest in the bush behind the barn (several of our birds use scraps of wool that our sheep leave on rails or fences); cheerful Meadowlarks on post at the end of the driveway; Bluebirds nesting in the mailbox because they couldn’t find a hollow tree; Yellow Warblers in the lilac bush outside the sun porch window; Mallards nesting in the north hay field where we leave a swath uncut. Black Terns diving at Harv and I as we pole our barn-door raft too close to their half-floating nest on the slough across the road.

These are some of the memories that the egg collection stirs deep within my heart. Like much of the countryside of my boyhood, the habitat that was the farm is now completely replaced by highways and commercial development. I wonder where these species now reside. I’m sure that many have dispersed to more friendly distant grounds. But I am afraid that even those that have, are back in fewer number.